Billy Corgan is largely responsible for my sex life. He’s also got to cop to my love of music and fervent devouring thereof–the man has a lot to answer for. So I’m sitting here listening to “G.L.O.W.,” the latest track (I think) from the most recent incarnation of Smashing Pumpkins–3.5 bland, repetitive minutes, including the telling lyric “I’m so alone I can’t get old”–and wondering what the hell happened here.
But first, context.
It’s October 1996 and I’m 12. At this point in my life, my musical world extends about as far as The Carpenters Greatest Hits and 7″ singles of “Love Will Keep Us Together,” maybe with Ladies of the Canyon on a good day–to say I am ignorant of modern music would be generous. So when a guy I kinda have a crush on takes the talent show stage with his band and plays a sneering, seething rock song, very much unlike what I’m used to, I have no fucking idea what it is, but good god do I want it. Some sly detective work (aka: asking my friend Dana) leads me to the identity of the song: “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.” A week and some leftover birthday money later, I sit on the couch in our basement holding a copy of Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, the first CD purchase I ever made.
That afternoon (roughly 4 to 6 PM) was basically the galvanizing moment of my adolescence. By the time “Jellybelly” started raging its way out of the boombox I had gotten a month earlier for my birthday, it was crystallized in my mind: I was not eavesdropping on my mother’s music any more–these were songs made for me. As long as I live and as much as I listen to, I will never forget that feeling of amazement.
Flash forward two years. It’s the end of eighth grade and I’m proudly sporting a Zero shirt (sidenote: whatever happened to that? Hm.) By now, I have collected Gish, Siamese Dream and Pisces Iscariot and become equally enamored with each. The fact that Pisces Iscariot has amazing songs like “Starla” and “Obscured,” yet is made of material relegated to B-sides is proof that I am a fan of the greatest band in the universe. And to show his mutual affection for said band–one of the reasons we started talking–my first boyfriend buys me a copy of Adore on our very first outing together. (”I Adore you. Get it?” Trust me, it was great.) And this goes on to set a precedent: all the major relationships in my life have had this thread in common in some way–detailing them all would take too long.
The point I’m going for here, is that I have a lot invested in this particular music. So when “b0lly” went crazy, I did take it a bit personally.
Not that he wasn’t always a little crazy. But the heavy processing of MACHINA/The Machines of God and the subsequent “Fuck you, everybody!” release of the MACHINA II bootleg album, the rants about Britney Spears and warring against the teenyboppers, the increasing fondness for skirts… Well, I was worried. And then the band broke up.
In the 2.5 years between the breakup and the Zwan album, I learned to live with this reality. I learned to laugh at it. So yeah, I went and saw Zwan in concert and had fun. And I was content to shake my head and “tsk” sadly at the overall wishy-washiness of Bill’s solo effort, TheFutureEmbrace (especially since some of the songs might’ve been okay in a different arrangement). But when it was announced Smashing Pumpkins were reforming (without James Iha and neither Melissa Auf Der Maur nor the mysteriously vanished D’arcy), it stirred up some old feelings. And upon listening to the 2007 album Zeitgeist… I cried a little.
The experience went roughly like this: “Hey, this song has some heavy riffing and layered vocals. Okay, that’s kind of okay. Hm, this song has some heavy riffing and layered vocals too. This one too… and this one. Wait, which song is this?” It’s not that parts of the album don’t have a certain charm to them; Tarantula is an okay song (although the video’s kind of… weird–why the cape?) and there are some interesting detours in the synthed out tones of “For God and Country,” the choir lilt of “Pomp and Circumstance” or the shiny poppiness of “Bring the Light.” Actually, listening to the album again now, I’m tempted not to judge it quite as harshly. Yet if I put on any of the pre-Machina album, this still feels… sadly flat, by comparison.
In trying to figure out why this is, I came up with a couple distinct factors. First, even though the songs on Zeitgeist do have their own textures, there’s not the sense of ambition that stood out on the earlier records. Mellon Collie is the most obvious example of this–across its two hours there are everything from gentle acoustics ballads like “Stumbleine” to ferocious neo-metal (as opposed to nu-metal, mind) attacks like “X.Y.U.,” with such shifts often, as in that case, happening back to back. Even 13 years after its initial release, the breadth of the record is a big part of what keeps it fresh–the feeling is like Corgan was throwing down every cool idea he could think of, regardless of any ethos or sense of how it would all fit together. Even though the other albums are somewhat more focused, even Adore varies it up within its pseudo-goth aesthetic–the sexy slink of “Pug” is a far cry from the starkness of “To Sheila,” for example. By comparison, the more recent work seems homogenized–the sound of a songwriter who has settled into a rut and, while playing around in that rut a bit, refuses to get out of it.
Second, and more importantly, nothing on Zeitgeist has the pathos of the pre-breakup albums. Part of what made that experience of listening to Mellon Collie so revelatory was the ability it created to forge an emotional connection and the other work supported that. When he sang “Try to understand that when I can, I will” on “Mayonaise” (Siamese Dream) or even in more obscure expressions like “Flower chase the sunshine” (”Snail,” from Gish), one got the impression that there was something powerful behind those words that was trying to come out. Even when it was silly (”Into the eyes of the jackal I say KA-BOOM!” from “X.Y.U.”) or oddly inscrutable (”I aim to please the little girl inside of me” from “Hello Kitty Kat”) or just embarrassingly blunt/overwrought (”Ugly,” as a whole), it felt sincere. And when it worked, as on the blistering “Soma,” the sweet “Crush,” or the nostalgic “1979,” there was a lot of power there.
Yet now, I’m not able to get much of a sense from the songs. Songs like “Doomsday Clock” come out muddled in their intent (is this personal? social? what?). And when it is somewhat clear, as on “United States,” it falls back on cliched platitudes and bland sentiments (I’m wary of any song that uses the word “revolution” that many times). Instead of feeling like there’s too much behind each song to even express, it feels strained–trying to connect with that same kind of power without really getting there.
Which leads to the thousand dollar question–is it me, the band or both? Can I just not accept what Corgan is doing now because I’m too used to the old material, or is the new material really lacking the same spirit? Would I have connected with Zeitgeist, had it been released 10 years ago, and would I connect with Mellon Collie if it had been released this year?
That’s not an easy question to answer, and I’m sure there’s a little bit of both aspects involved. I still believe Billy Corgan has the capacity to write beautiful songs–the “Chicago” set at the Metro was stunning to hear, for example–but the released material of the past few years doesn’t live up to those standards. The feeling is akin to seeing an old lover, long after a breakup. Under the surface, there is a sense of what you once loved, a whiff of nostalgia for all those powerful old emotions, but still enough distance to know it could never be what it once was because you’ve both moved on. Maybe you’re doing a little better than they are–you’ve got a new lover and you can tell they want you back more than they’re willing to admit, but even so…
Which speaks to the relationship we, as fans, can have with music–its ability to affect us like a living, breathing entity. There’s give and take, like there is in any interpersonal interaction, and like those interactions, some of them are more intimate than others; sometimes they’re blissful, sometimes they’re frustrating. Yet ultimately, the Lord Tennyson quote applies here too; “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” That I’m disappointed in listening to Zeitgeist speaks to the profound effect the older music has had on me. The urge is to look at it is a “wouldn’t it be better to burn out than fade away” type question, but I don’t think that’s totally fair either. If there are fans of the music (which there are) and if the band is happy making it (which they seem to be), I can not care for it, but more power to them.
Sorry Billy… we’ve just drifted apart. It’s nobody’s fault. We’ll always have 1996.
